Demonstrators urge return of Confederate items

Published: Sunday, October 22, 2000

AUSTIN {AP} About 300 demonstrators bearing Confederate battle flags and shouting rebel yells marched to the state Capitol in the rain Saturday, where they rallied against the removal of Confederate monuments from state buildings.

Women wearing petticoats and men in gray Civil War uniforms marched alongside others wearing Confederate flag T-shirts, all waging the same debate unfolding in state capitals and high school football fields across the South.

"Put our flags back," the crowd chanted.

Demonstrators also demanded that legislators "put the plaques back," referring to one of the most recent efforts in Texas to remove memorials displaying the Confederate flag.

In June, two plaques displaying the Confederate battle flag and quotations from Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee were removed from the lobby of the Texas Supreme Court building at the request of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said Jerry Patterson, a former state senator and spokesman for the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

He said money from a Confederate widows' pension fund helped pay for the court building and that descendants of Confederate soldiers have a right to see their heritage displayed there.

"That's the first move on a slippery slope," he said of the memorial removal. "And we are here to protect the other monuments."